By all accounts, actress Charlize Theron underwent an amazing transformation to play Aileen Wuornos in the movie Monster. Fake teeth, extra pounds and dirty hair turn her from a glamorous beauty into a gritty killer who lived a hard life on the road. That's real acting. The kind of opportunity Hollywood wannabes will kill to have. But when Hollywood came knocking at Charles Rogers' door, the longtime Osceola resident passed on his 15 minutes of fame. The scene moviemakers wanted him and his wife, Fannette, to do wouldn't have lasted that long.

In the past 82 years, 16 women were singled out to receive Florida's ultimate punishment: the death penalty. These women killed their husbands. Or they killed cops. Half a dozen of them murdered multiple people. Some killed during robberies and murder-for-hire schemes. One tortured and killed her young son. This month, prosecutors announced they are seeking the death penalty for Casey Anthony, an Orange County mother charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee Marie.

DAYTONA BEACH - More than eight years after serial killer Aileen Wuornos was first sentenced to death in Volusia County, lawyers returned to court Wednesday to get the death sentence overturned. A former Volusia resident, Wuornos worked as a prostitute along Central Florida highways and admitted to killing seven men in 1989 and 1990. Wuornos, the hitchhiking prostitute sentenced to die for the murders of six men, didn't attend the court hearing. She is seeking to overturn her conviction and death sentence in the 1989 shooting of 51-year-old Richard Mallory of Clearwater.

*First woman executed in Florida in modern times: Judy Buenoano, electrocuted March 30, 1998, for poisoning her husband with arsenic in Orlando. Pensacola juries also found her guilty of drowning her paralyzed son and trying to firebomb her boyfriend. *First woman ever executed in Florida: a slave named Celia, in the mid-19th century, for killing her master. *Third and most recent woman executed in Florida: Serial killer Aileen Wuornos (above), the "Highway Hooker," put to death by lethal injection Oct. 9, 2002.

ORANGE CITY -- Aileen Wuornos' story as America's first female serial killer has been told through newspapers, books, made-for-television movies, even an opera. Now it's set to make a big-screen debut. Damsel of Death, The Aileen Wuornos Story by independent film writer, director and producer Jackelyn Giroux recently was selected for the New York International Independent Film Festival. The festival is scheduled to open Feb. 4 in Manhattan. Giroux's film is described by festival director and founder Stuart Alson as the female version of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, a fictionalized film inspired by serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to killing more than 300 people.

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush late Thursday signed death warrants for two inmates -- including serial killer Aileen Wuornos -- although the Florida Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether the state's death penalty is constitutional. In an act that one death-penalty opponent labeled a "crass political move," Bush signed warrants for Wuornos, a prostitute who fatally shot six middle-aged men along the highways of Central and North Florida in 1989 and 1990, and Rigoberto Sanchez-Velasco, who murdered an 11-year-old Hialeah girl in 1986.

Convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos will have her chance to end her appeals and hasten her execution date, the Florida Supreme Court decided Wednesday. The high court ruled that Wuornos, 45, a highway prostitute convicted of killing six men, must prove to a circuit judge that she is competent and intelligent enough to forgo the appeals to her many death sentences and that she is doing so voluntarily. On death row since 1992, Wuornos asked the Supreme Court seven times this year to fire her state-funded attorneys with Capital Collateral Regional Counsel and end her appeals.

After she was arrested at the Last Resort bar in Port Orange in January 1991, Aileen Wuornos, a stocky, straggly haired woman with desperate eyes and a foul mouth, didn't hesitate to tell judge and jury exactly what she thought of them when she appeared in court. She had lived in rented rooms and on the streets among Florida's drifters and earned her living as a prostitute along the interstate highway. In late 1989 she killed one of the men who picked her up, and over the next year killed at least five more.

"Monster" is the perfect one-word description of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The film Monster is just as succinct. Brutal, brilliant, depressing and riveting, it is more than Charlize Theron's career-making impersonation-interpretation of Wuornos. It is evil dissected, a film about a Frankenstein created through a lifetime of abuse and hardships. The gutsiness of director Patty Jenkins' film comes from her decision not to turn Wuornos into an icon -- lesbian, anti-death penalty, pro-death penalty, what have you. She skims the miserable story of this woman's life and shows how Wuornos became the heartless killer that Florida executed in 2002.

The TV movie about her was only to be expected. So were the documentary films. After all, Aileen Wuornos is a serial killer -- condemned for the deaths of six men who picked her up along highways as she worked as a prostitute. Her trial a decade ago in Volusia County created a sensation in the media, so it was inevitable that her story would wind up on the screen. But now Wuornos is entering a whole new category: She's the title character of an opera. Wuornos will have its premiere tonight in San Francisco -- the fruition of five years' work by Carla Lucero, a Bay Area composer who wrote both words and music.

Before he was ever charged with murder, Todd Zommer publicly confessed to killing his 77-year-old neighbor and told a reporter that he wanted to be executed as soon as possible. "I don't care. I don't feel remorse," he said in an April interview at the Osceola County Jail. "I just want the jury to find me guilty and sentence me to death. Do you think I want to live like this?" Zommer, 34, is one of an increasing number of what are known as "death-penalty volunteers." Another was Glenn Ocha, who was executed last month for an October 1999 Buenaventura Lakes murder.

David Sylvester Frances will learn within the next two months whether he is condemned to die for strangling an Orlando woman and her teenage niece four years ago. If he is, the decision will buck a surprising trend in which death sentences in Florida have dropped dramatically since the late 1980s and by 50 percent nationally during the past decade. Frances would become only the 10th person in Florida to receive a death sentence this year. A decade ago, 39 people were sentenced to die in Florida.

See both Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, a documentary about Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and the Florida-filmed Monster, for which Charlize Theron won an Oscar for playing Wuornos. ***** Monster (Columbia-TriStar; 111 minutes; rated R for strong violence and sexual content and for pervasive language; priced for rental, $26.96 for DVD): The gutsiness of director Patty Jenkins' film about Aileen Wuornos comes from her decision not to turn her subject into an icon -- lesbian, anti-death penalty, pro-death penalty, what-have-you.

If more people had seen Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, would Charlize Theron have gotten her best actress Oscar for Monster? Theron's performance as Central Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos is certainly impressive in its way. But it's only vaguely related to the wild, twisted woman we encounter in this fascinating documentary. Theron has been praised for her remarkable physical transformation from glamour girl to disgusting prostitute. But the real Wuornos comes across differently, especially in footage from around the time of the killings.

Here are reviews, from Sentinel movie critics Jay Boyar and Roger Moore, of a selection of films showing in the 13th annual Florida Film Festival's final weekend. `AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER' **** If more people had seen Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, would Charlize Theron have gotten her Oscar for Monster? Theron's performance as Central Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos is impressive in its way. But it seems only vaguely related to the woman in this fascinating documentary.

Remember the streaker who ran onstage at the 1974 Oscars, inspiring David Niven's impromptu remark about the poor soul's "shortcomings"? Some of Oscar night's most entertaining moments have been that kind of total surprise. Other big Oscar moments are easier to predict: You didn't have to be the Amazing Kreskin to expect an in-your-face acceptance speech when firebrand director Michael Moore won last year's documentary-feature prize for Bowling for Columbine. So what about tonight? No one really knows, of course.

The awards and the acclaim just keep piling on to Monster, the little low-budget film about Central Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Monster picked up a string of Independent Spirit Award nominations, including best first feature, best first screenplay and best female lead. Monster's star, Charlize Theron, has been nominated for a Golden Globe. The Broadcast Film Critics Association -- an early Oscar indicator -- named Theron best actress. Other critics groups, including the National Society of Film Critics, have done the same.

See both Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, a documentary about Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and the Florida-filmed Monster, for which Charlize Theron won an Oscar for playing Wuornos. ***** Monster (Columbia-TriStar; 111 minutes; rated R for strong violence and sexual content and for pervasive language; priced for rental, $26.96 for DVD): The gutsiness of director Patty Jenkins' film about Aileen Wuornos comes from her decision not to turn her subject into an icon -- lesbian, anti-death penalty, pro-death penalty, what-have-you.

More than three weeks after an Orange County deputy shot and killed a fleeing unarmed man, Sheriff Kevin Beary finally spoke out at length -- by attacking those who were asking questions. Specifically, Beary went after County Commissioner Homer Hartage and state Sen. Gary Siplin. "They point fingers at the deputies while saying nothing about the drug dealers and career criminals who wish to victimize you, your families and your neighborhood," the sheriff said at a news conference Tuesday.

John Tanner hasn't gotten this much attention because of a serial killer since those pre-execution prayer sessions with Ted Bundy. With the buzz building over the movie about Aileen Wuornos, some in the media want to know what the man who helped prosecute her thinks of Monster. Short answer: He hasn't seen it. In fact, Tanner said that until recently he was on the fence about whether to see the film at all. Volusia County's state attorney was fairly certain it would either glamorize or sympathize with the hitchhiking prostitute who confessed to killing seven men. That was before Tanner started getting calls soliciting his opinion, including one from ABC's 20/20, which told Tanner it is sending down a crew this week.